Happy Lucha Charade!
by mjnousak
Summary: Kenichi and Rachel suddenly start dating due to a newspaper article and Niijima's personal "request". Can they keep up their little plan long enough for Niijima to work things out? Or will this plan cause too many problems for everyone?
1. The Lucha Charade Begins

Kenichi gripped the school newspaper so tight, he thought it would rip under the sheer force of his grip. The article that had grabbed his attention, wasn't the new section on the gardening club, which he had put a lot of effort into getting published, no, it was the article in the "Couples" section. Why in Kami's name Niijima had put Kenichi and Rachel Stanley, AKA Castor of YOMI, as "The Most Unexpected Couple" was well beyond his enraged brain could comprehend.

"Niijima." Kenichi said under his breath as he walked towards homeroom, the paper still in his hand. To his surprise, Niijima was stepping out of his homeroom, looking equally enraged. He turned to see Kenichi and frowned deeper upon seeing the look on his face.

"I suppose we have a common enemy Kenichi" he said, holding the paper in his clawed hands, he had apparently crumpled it as well, though not to the same degree as Kenichi.

"Wait, you didn't publish this?" Kenichi asked, his anger trading places with immense confusion. The article had Niijima's name at the bottom because Niijima was the only one who could gather information on couples well enough to make a section of the paper worth looking at.

"Kenichi, if I used your name for something, it'd be for my own benefit." Niijima said, his blunt statement irritating Kenichi that Niijima would still use his name without permission anyway. "Some frivolous article I do for laughs is not going to help me in any way. Unless I wanted a mutiny of course, then I'd just go ask Miu for information." His honesty, again, irritating Kenichi. "But this is serious Kenichi. Someone used both our names without permission." Niijima's expression grew dark" They clearly do not know that you should not use a lord's name in vain" he said, his maniacal grin showing up, the shadows on Niijima's face making his face look truly demonic as he began laughing.

"Y-yeah…" Kenichi said, he didn't feel like arguing with Niijima, but having him on his side was encouraging none the less. Rachel suddenly appeared between Kenichi and Niijima, her face also livid.

"What is this?" She said, rather loudly as she flamboyantly walked over to the two of them, flipping her hair and emphasizing her steps by stomping, making sure the whole class knew she was enraged.

"We don't know." Kenichi and Niijima both said at the same time, in the same tone.

"Well clearly you do because it involves both of you!" She said, still looking irritated.

"No, I didn't write that article." Niijima said. "If I had, it would've been on the front page with a much larger, possibly photoshopped picture of you two kissing at the beach or on top of a pile of delinquents." He continued speaking as though he had planned out something for this scenario. "And it would have had much more information than just two names." Reluctantly, Kenichi internally agreed with Niijima. If he wanted something known, he made it known, all over the place with a loudspeaker and in full color, with very exaggerated articles. The time he had beaten "Shaggy Hair" came to mind specifically.

"Well who would use the three of use for something so stupid and not at all Lucha." Rachel said, her voice down to a normal, but irate tone.

"I do not know." Niijima said, "But they will pay dearly for using my name without permission." He said, laughing under his breath in a way that made both Kenichi and Rachel take a step away from him quickly. "BUT!", he said in a most dramatic manner. "Until we discover the culprit, I suggest we go along with their little game." He smiled wickedly, placing a clawed hand on both Kenichi and Rachel's shoulder. "Why don't you two act the part of a happy little couple until we can find our culprit and punish them properly?" Niijima said, pushing them together so their shoulders were touching, his smile still growing wider.

"Absolutely not!" Kenichi shouted, fearing what would happen to him if Miu got wind of this.

"I do not share the spotlight with anyone but my Maestro!" Rachel said at the same time and louder than Kenichi.

"It'll only be temporary." Niijima said, his eyes glowing slightly like Kenichi's masters when they were doing a master class technique. "All you have to do is hold hands and act a little lovey dovey in public~. What's the worst that could happen?" he asked, his forked tongue coming out of his mouth and his brainwashing antenna emerging. Though the antenna dared not make contact with Kenichi or Rachel. Niijima knew better than to try and brainwash Kenichi from past failed experiments, and he had a feeling nothing would persuade Rachel to not hog the spotlight. "Rachel, you'd be the talk of the town for dating the local toughest guy in town." He said, hoping she'd bite his very tempting bait. She usually would go for anything that got her the attention of the people in the immediate area, but the whole town would surely get her to see things his way.

"Really?" Rachel asked, her eyes gleaming suddenly as she looked endearingly at Niijima.

"Yeeeesssss~" Niijima said, reeling in his prey. "It'd be like an affair had happened and you were the cause." Niijima said, telling a half truth. He knew very well Kenichi and Miu weren't officially "dating" but she had feelings for him , even if she didn't know it. Kenichi was obviously smitten with Miu and he also knew Renka would be irritated with this news. He'd have to arrange his daily route to dodge the kung-fu fighter for a few days lest be beaten relentlessly.

"Reeeeeeaaaalllly?" Rachel said, her voice squeaking in excitement at the prospect of so much attention.

"Yep, I bet even the delinquents from other schools will know about this, it could spread through a few towns." Niijima finished, putting the final nail in this coffin. Rachel was squealing and smiling so brightly, Niijima was surprised that she didn't blind him. Of course the more excited Rachel got, the more depressed Kenichi looked.

"That settles it! We're officially a couple from now on Kenichi!" Rachel said, turning and hugging Kenichi tightly enough that he'd wish Apachai had kicked him instead. He knew he'd be able to recover from Rachel's hug, but Apachai's kick might at least make people pity him if he died.

"Cheer up Kenichi, what's the worst that could come from this?" Niijima asked, his demonic grin ever present as he spoke now.

"Comon Kenichi, we have classes to get to~" Kenichi groaned as Rachel dragged him out of the hallway. The moment they disappeared, Niijima's grin vanished to be replaced by a serious face as he opened his PDA and began sending messages to all his subordinates who were under officer rank.

"They think that I'm mad because they used my name, but that's not quite true." Niijima muttered to himself. "My information is always correct, always." he said, tensing his hand on his PDA. "I will never be accused of giving false information. KEH KEH KEH KEH KEH!" he said as his eyes began to glow as he laughed, scaring a few underclassman who were passing by the room.

At lunch time Kenichi headed to the physics room, hoping he'd find Miu and be able to explain what was going on to her. He found Takeda, Kisara, and Ukita there instead. As he entered the room, they all glared at him.

"The hell is going on Shirahama?" Ukita shouted, his confusion apparent.

"Yeah, I knew you like big breasts, but I didn't think they were all that mattered to you." Kisara said, looking disappointedly at Kenichi. She had thought he had more character than just to judge on physical appearances like most people.

"How could you do that to Honey!" Takeda shouted, he was going to punch Kenichi, but Kenichi was already gone by the time he balled his fist.

Kenichi cried while he ate his lunch, curled into a ball inside the water tower. Few people knew that it was actually and empty water tower, so you could hide in it if you brought a light. Kenichi kept a flashlight on himself at the request of his mother, and it was proving useful now. The tower was also old, so it was very thick as well and sound wouldn't travel outside it.

"I can't believe they all didn't think it was suspicious." Kenichi muttered as he ate a riceball with jelly inside. "I mean, when have I showed any interest in anyone but Miu?" He thought, chewing exceptionally slowly. He could escape them for the rest of the day, but he couldn't escape them after school, they all knew where he lived, and his masters would probably know what had happened somehow and kick his training up a few notches to "punish" him. But that was nothing compared to how Miu would treat him. His meals would be cut to next to nothing, and he wouldn't get any secret treatment for his training injuries. He had a feeling that this was going to be a very long, gruesome couple of days while Niijima found out who had done this and he and Rachel could "break up".

"Band-aid" a voice said from outside the tower caught Kenichi's attention. Then he remembered, he was supposed to watch Chikage water the flowers like usual. And she never bothered to start without him because he knew the proper amounts of water the plants really needed, not just what the books said the average plant of that variety needed. "Band-aid" Chikage's voice said again, seeming to have moved away from the tower. Kenichi slowly opened the water tower to spot, much to his fear, Chikage accompanied by Renka. He whimpered, which both the female martial artists noticed as he slammed the tower's hatch closed and held it that way for dear life. Renka could tell Miu, that'd be really bad. Chikage would have been quiet if he asked, but not Renka. "Come out Band-aid." Chikage's monotone said, coming from directly above Kenichi. He said nothing, hoping she'd write him off as not wanting to talk and she'd leave and water the plants with another member of the club. But he had no such luck, instead, a fist burst through the tower's bottom and grabbed his ankle, causing him to tense up into a ball, hanging from the lid of the tower to escape its grasp. He saw Renka's eye peek through the hole that she had made and continued to punch holes until she could fit through the new large hole she had made that covered at least an eighth of the tank's small floor.

"Alright Kenichi, explain this article." Renka said, looking angry for, to Kenichi, no apparent reason.

"You're going to listen to me?" He asked praying she'd listen and not be mad like everyone else.

"Well, yeah." She said, wondering what on earth he thought she'd do to him. He had never shown interest in Rachel before, so him dating her out of the blue was odd enough. She had tried to ask the members of the Shim-something-or-other Alliance, but they all seemed irate at Kenichi for the article and weren't any help. So she asked Chikage for help, knowing the genius girl would find this article as odd as she did.

"Oh thank god!" Kenichi shouted, hugging Renka out of sheer joy, causing the flips of hair on the side of her head to wave up and down vigorously.

"A-anything for you Kenichi." Renka said, blushing even after Kenichi had let go of her and began explaining what had happened that morning after he parted ways with Miu and gotten the paper.

"Niijima put you up to this?" Renka asked after Kenichi had told her the story of this morning's events.

"Not put, more like forced." Kenichi said in a flat tone. He really had no choice in the matter once Niijima had gotten Rachel to believe this would bring her attention.

"I see." Renka said. "I'll just have a talk with him and sort this whole thing out" She said as she stepped down to the hole she had just made, her eyes faintly glowing and her face identical to Miu's after they had seen Kisara kicking a box with a kitten in it.

"I doubt that will work." Kenichi said, flat toned. "He's pretty hellbent on this."

"So the Alien set up Band-Aid." Chikage said as Renka reappeared..

"Yeah, he should pay." Renka said, cracking her knuckles.

"I fail to see how that will help the situation." Chikage said, her expression not faulting. "Alien seems to do as he wishes, regardless of others wishes. It'd be best to just let him do what he needs and keep Castor's involvement to a minimum." She said, treating this oddly like a mission. She normally would stay out of Castor's and Bandaid's business, but this would affect YOMI's team mechanics, which she did not need happening. Castor was a wildcard and unpredictable as is without provocation, but having her dating YOMI's sworn enemy would not end well for either party. Yami would get involved and then Master class fighters might get involved. Bandaid was adequate at what he did, but a master would defeat him easily, and she didn't want him dead for some reason.

"Humph, fine, I'll keep away from the alien." Renka said, huffing and heading back to her locker to eat her lunch before the break ended.

"Is she gone?" Kenichi asked Chikage, sticking his head through the hole Renka had created.

"Yes Band-Aid." She replied, beginning to walk away herself. "I'd watch myself if I were you though, this could become dangerous."

"How could it become dangerous?" Kenichi asked half confused and panicked. He knew dating someone other than Miu would probably get his diet seriously injured and his masters would beat his body silly, but nothing else that would seriously threaten his health.

"Let me ask you this Band-Aid." Chikage said, turning back to face Kenichi. "When has Castor ever not tried to do anything to attract attention to herself given any scenario?" Kenichi tilted his head in confusion. He knew Rachel liked to draw attention to herself, anyone that knew her could tell that.

"Um, never, why?" Kenichi replied in a confused tone.

"What is the easiest way for a couple to attract the public eye? Especially a younger couple?" She asked, purposely letting him figure it out on his own.

"Well, to have a kid, "Kenichi started his list of things a couple could do to draw attention to themselves. He sure as hell was not going to try and seduce Rachel or accept those kinds of advances. He'd love to do it, but he had a feeling his masters wouldn't allow that sort of thing to happen in Ryozanpaku, that and he still wanted ot go out with Miu. "kiss in public or live…togeth…" Kenichi's brain stopped at that point. Rachel would try to move into Ryozanpaku with him. He couldn't stop her even if he wanted to. She had money to pay for her stay there so Miu wouldn't argue about it too much once this was brought to her attention, she'd see all his less than ego boosting training methods. Ma would be overjoyed that she was there, Apachai never argued with anyone who was providing him with a lot of food, she could bribe Sakaki with the finest beer and alcohol, Shigure wouldn't care as long as she didn't try to enter her room or bother Tochumaru, Akisame might object, but he was easily overridden by the other masters, and the Elder would try to please Miu by having her stay for the money she would provide. And she'd insist that she sleep in Kenichi's room, He'd have to hide his "How-to" books and his backpack so she couldn't find them. " NOOOOOOOOOOO!" he shouted, pouting . Chikage walked away from him, her message given and point made.

Kenichi walked back to Ryozanpaku by himself after school, he had spotted Miu and she looked pissed, so he decided to just walk by himself, avoiding his usual route so he wouldn't run into Miu. Much to his dismay, Miu had been looking for him and found him, at the same time Rachel did. How Rachel knew where he was at was beyond him, but he figured Miu just climbed up a telephone pole and spotted him.

"Hello Kenichi." Miu said coldly, causing Kenichi to feel like a small part of him was dying slowly inside. "How was your day?"

"F-fine Miu…did you see the newspaper today? It had an article I'd like to talk to you about." He asked, praying her mood was based on a bad grade or something, anything but the article.

"Yes I did.' She answered shortly before taking her usual shortcut home by jumping to the other side of the river. "I'll see you at home then Kenichi."

"W-wait Miu!" Kenichi shouted, trying to jump across the river but he was grabbed by Rachel , causing them both to fall into the river.

"Hi there Kenichi~" Rachel said. 'You're heavier than ya look ya know? Usually I can pull someone up from that kind of situation." She smiled at him brightly. Had Kenichi not been fretting over the fact he was going to have to face his master and now a thoroughly pissed off Miu, he would've liked her smile.

"Why? Whhhhyyy?" he shouted with his face in the river water.

"Are you alright Kenichi?" Rachel asked, pulling his head from the water unceremoniously hard and throwing him into the air a bit.

"There is no god." He whimpered.

"And what does that mean?" Rachel asked. He was next to her and her clothes were soaking wet, It was almost like he wasn't even trying to pay attention to her, which pissed her off.

"I live at Ryozanpaku!" he shouted at her, his mind too distracted by thoughts of the many ways he would die without Miu's daily treatment to notice her clothes had become see through. "The masters are gonna kill meeee" He bawled, looking quite pathetic.

"Oh I don't think they'd do that, they follow the life giving fist after all." Rachel said, trying to calm him down.

"No! You don't get it!" Kenichi shouted, his nose dripping blood when he caught sight of Rachel's wet clothes. "They'll do it during my training, it'll look like an accident and then I'll never be heard from again." He cried, curling into a small ball in the river, sucking his thumb and rocking back and forth. "I can't go back, they'll kill me, weapons. Fists…Apachai…" he'd gone back to his insane rambling habit out of pure fear. Rachel sighed and noticed Chikage walking by, probably heading towards the train station to head home herself.

"Oh Chikage~!" She shouted, drawing the judo apprentices eyes for a moment.

"Yes Castor?" She replied, slightly curious as to why Band-aid was curled into a ball and weeping.

"Can you help me with him, he's rambling on about his masters killing him with training and won't stop." Rachel explained. Grabbing Kenichi's collar and hoisting him up over the embankment, making him land near Chikage, who blinked morosely at him.

"What am I supposed to do with Band-aid?" She asked, poking at his head, his ranting about knees, elbows, and needles never ceasing.

"I dunno, just snap him out of it! He won't make much of a boyfriend if he won't even talk to me." Rachel said, determined to at least make this a convincing act. Chikage stared blankly at the couple before her. Not that she thought they certainly qualified as a couple given the circumstances laid before her. Band-aid was more than likely going to stay like this until someone shocked him out of his stupor.

"This should snap him out of it." Chikage said, walking over to Kenichi, looking at him for a second and then not too gently tossing him into Castor's cleavage. Kenichi's nose started to bleed and he seemed to be shaking out of it as he registered where his head had just landed.

"S-soooft." He mumbled as he slowly came back to reality.

"Yeah! He' coming back to us!"Rachel said, hugging Kenichi's head further into her cleavage. Unfortunately for Kenichi, he was unable to breath at this point and promptly passed out. "What… ohh he passed out." Rachel grumbled. She sat on the side walk, sitting Kenichi next to her. "Well now what will I do?" She mused, crossing her legs and setting her things in the unconscious Kenichi's lap. "He is definitely not lucha." She grumbled.

"Regardless of his 'luchaness' or lack thereof." Chikage said, nearly slapping herself for saying "luchaness". "You should probably take him home."

"That's right! My Maestro showed me his address once, I'll be sure to find his place!" Rachel said, Picking up her things and Kenichi's then throwing Kenichi over her shoulder. "Thank you for your assistance Chikage!" She said before heading in the completely wrong direction.

"This will be a trying period for all of us it seems." Chikage said, turning and resuming her walk until she spotted a candy store. She paused for a minute, thought about it, then headed in, muttering "I need a sundae." to herself and entering "child mode".

After several minutes of being lost and confused, Rachel finally asked directions from a passing mail delivery boy she'd seen at school once before and got directions to Ryozanpaku.

"Finally, I'm here~!" She shouted, pressing on the massive wooden doors and making them very slowly open. "my these certainly are impressive doors." She commented, looking at how thick and tall they were.

"Why thank you young lady." She heard a large voice say before looking up and seeing The Invincible Superman looking down at her. "And what business do you have here at Ryozanpaku?" The elder was playing dumb intentionally. The last time someone from YOMI has barged into the dojo, there had been quite a mess, and he saw Miu was already in a bad mood, so he wanted to avoid any further problems for his granddaughter,

"Just dropping off my boyfriend!" Rachel declared loudly as she handed Kenichi over to the Elder, who held the unconscious boy and blinked a bit stupidly. While the Elder was naturally twitchy about anyone dating Miu, Kenichi suddenly dating someone else did NOT please him. Especially because it put Miu in such a bad mood.

Within the dojo, a large chain of unfortunate events happened. Given that each of the Masters had very sharp hearing, they easily heard what Rachel had said. Sakaki dropped his beer, then swore because he'd dropped beer and made a mess that, with Miu in the bad mood she was in, he'd have to try and clean up.

"The hell is the brat thinking dating another girl?" he though as he tried to pick up all the shards of glass off the floor quickly.

Akisame chipped the nose off of a marble sphinx sculpture he was working on, sighing heavily before setting it aside and started to work on a new piece of marble, making a mental note to thoroughly interrogate Kenichi on what was going on. He'd only ever shown romantic interest in Miu. True he certainly was like Ma in a few regards, but he wouldn't up and date another girl so suddenly, let alone a member of Yomi.

Apachai missed the wooden pole he was chai kicking, accidentally kicking a branch off of the Elder's favorite tree, causing him to pale a bit. That was going to be much harder to explain than when he merely nailed good luck dolls to the tree.

"Apa…this isn't good."

Ma dropped his dirty magazine into the pond, he cursed in Chinese before suddenly being overcome with joy. Kenichi had a girlfriend, and it was that Rachel girl from YOMI, who loved getting attention. He could probably sneak taking boatloads of photos of them being all romantic before anything happened. Though he knew this would easily drop the mood of the dojo with Miu's bad mood. So, even to him, this wasn't a good situation, but it certainly wasn't terrible. He made a mental note to get some Chinese medicine ready for Kenichi incase he got a bit more seriously injured.

Shigure stopped sharpening her beloved katana for a moment, then shrugged and went back to work. She knew this was going to be a long day when Kenichi woke up. Though she was beginning to wonder what was going on and she wanted to investigate, she was confident Akisame and the others would get all the info she was curious about out of Kenichi before she had to ask him any questions herself.

"Thank you for dropping him off young lady." The elder said, smiling down at Rachel.

"No problem! I'll probably stop by tomorrow too." She said bowing a bit before back flipping over the wall that separated Ryozanpaku from the rest of the world. "Have a safe trip home." The Elder shouted to her over the fence before walking inside and dropping Kenichi on the main dojo's floor, the sudden contact with the ground waking him.

"Oww…what happened to me?" Kenichi mumbled out loudly, remembering the events that had occurred before he blacked out. After his memories rushed back to his head, he sighed" Well, at least I'm not." He stopped himself mid sentence as he realized where he was, and what that probably meant. "ohhh crap." He thought "Ooooohh crap oh crap oh crap!" he started to panic again. He had to get out of here. He could hide in Tanimoto's house until things blew over here. He juat ha dot get out before any of the masters found him.

"Well, it seems you've had quite a day Kenichi. You should tell me all about it." The Elder said from behind Kenichi, which caused him to pale as he turned to face the mammoth of a man behind him.

"Oh Elder! I didn't notice you! Uhh, how did I get here?" He asked, sweat pouring from his face.

"Your dear girlfriend was kind enough to drop you off." The Elder said calmly, which frightened Kenichi even more than if he had been yelling. "She seems like a nice girl, you should tell me all about what caused you two to get together. Now." He said firmly.

"Aha aha… well there's a funny story behind that." Kenichi said trying to back away from the elder, knowing he was in deep shit now.

"Must be quite a tale." Akisame said as he entered the room, blocking off one of the doorways. "I'm curious to hear it as well Kenichi."

"Yeah, me too." Sakaki said, entering right behind Akisame.

"I'd also like to hear this little story of yours." Ma said, appearing from another doorway.

"I too… would like to…hear it." Shigure said from the rafters.

"Story time already? Hooray!" Apachai said, any story had to be good, or nobody would tell them. Kenichi felt that, at that moment, death almost seemed like a welcoming thing, a good friend who could save him from the hell he was sure his life was about to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First of all, no I do NOT think this is the ideal paring in Kenichi (I ship MiuxKen) . I am writing this for the lulz exclusively. So I will update it at a slow rate (much like everything else I do, so sorry about that).

It's mostly gonna be cracktastic and practice for me to write out some action sequences. I also have no betareader for this series, my beta for AKGAA (Ah! Keiichi Gets An Angel) doesn't read this series to my knowledge so I won't charge them with reading this story. Feel free to message me if you'd like to beta. (I'm not quite sure how to go about asking people otherwise, sorry. ^^;)


	2. Lucha Home Delivery

"And that's why Rachel and I are dating." Kenichi finished explaining what had happened to his masters.

"So let me make sure I understand you Kenichi. You are dating a member of YOMI because Niijima asked you to?" Akisame asked, wishing to make sure he completely understood the situation.

"Yeah, that's the short version." Kenichi replied, sighing loudly.

"Well that's stupid." Sakaki stood up and headed towards one of the many doors out of the dojo so he could return to his room. "I mean ya shoulda just told him to fix this mess himself."

"Niijima convinced Rachel more than I Master Sakaki…and it's not like she'd listen to me anyway because of what Niijima said." Kenichi internally wished he did have some sway over Rachel, but the only one who did have any ability to make her listen was her teacher, the Laughing Fist Diego, who was currently incarcerated in the Big Lock prison. He wouldn't have been much help anyways.

"Che, I still say you should have said no." Said Sakaki, as he headed to his room for another few bottles of beer.

"He does have a point Kenichi, you could have said no to this whole thing." Akisame said. "I doubt Niijima or Miss Stanley are that influential in the school."

"Ohh trust me, Niijima is." Kenichi explained about the "shaggy haired" incident in detail to all present. Akisame raised an eyebrow at this.

"So that's how it happened. I never would have thought that strange boy was capable of such things." Akisame stood up and left the room looking pensive. "Ma, come with me, we have some things to discuss." Ma raised an eyebrow as well and followed him.

"I personally am very happy for you Kenichi, congratulations on getting a girlfriend." Ma said before he and Akisame both disappeared behind the closing door, leaving Kenichi alone with The Elder, Shigure, and Apachai.

"SO Kenichi how long do you think your 'relationship' with this girl will last?" The Elder asked, hoping this little charade would be over quickly.

"I doubt it'll be long Niijima is pretty quick when it comes to information gathering." Kenichi said, completely believing that he'd have a dramatic break up with Rachel within the next few days. He just hoped he could explain everything to Miu today, if she was fussy and grumpy the whole time this was going on, he knew he'd never survive.

"Hmm, well that's good to hear." The elder said, leaving the dojo as well. "I will tell Miu the situation for you Kenichi."

"Really? Thank you Elder!" Kenichi shouted, bowing his head to the floor from his sitting position in thanks.

"You're very welcome." The Elder flashed Kenichi a knowing smile as he closed the dojo door behind him.

"Oh thank god that's taken care of." Kenichi sighed in relief as he looked back to Shigure and Apachai, who had been sitting rather quietly the whole time. "Um, can I help you guys?"

"It's Apachai's turn to train you." Apachai said, his eyes glowing faintly in excitement. He'd been really eager to work on Kenichi's reflexes today, perhaps getting him to use his Seikuken with his knees and feet rather than just hands.

"I have…nothing else…to do." Shigure said, blinking a bit. She had already sharpened her swords, kunai, shuriken, and other weapons today. She'd checked up on her bamboo traps and found they were working perfectly, and she'd rearranged the traps to the hot springs once again. So she had nothing to do besides practice her swordplay in a bit. But she could take time out to oversee Kenichi's training with Apachai and make sure he didn't send Kenichi into orbit with a stray kick or punch.

"Oh."Kenichi sighed as he stood up, sliding off his shirt and bracing himself for the, what was sure to be painful, training given to him by Apachai.

It was not even ten minutes into his training with Apachai that he was kicked in the head and knocked unconscious, presumably from the immediate impact with Ryozanpaku's stone wall following the kick. When Kenichi woke up, he was still shirtless and wearing his arm guards, but was lying on his bed while a somewhat irate looking Miu wrapping a bandage around his head.

"H-hey there Miu." Kenichi said, raising his arm feebly and waving it.

"Hello Kenichi." Miu said, still a bit curtly and tying the knot on the bandages a bit tighter then was necessary, but she was less irritated than before.

"Did the Elder get a chance to tell you what's going on?" Kenichi said, sitting up a bit.

"Yes." She replied shortly before standing up and leaving quickly, making Kenichi groan.

"Dammit I wanted to explain a bit more." He said, whimpering a bit when he noticed Apachai was peeking through his window.

"Are you alright Kenichi?" the Thai master asked, holding himself up by his arms on Kenichi's windowsill.

"Yeah Apachai, I'm alright." Kenichi said, rubbing the back of his head a bit.

"Would you like to continue training? Your partner said she'd like to spar with you."

"When did Miu say she wanted to spar with me?" Kenichi usually sparred with Miu on the days he trained with Ma, Sakaki or Akisame, but not with Apachai.

"Not Miu silly, your friend girl." Apachai corrected his disciple.

"My friend…oh you mean my gir-" Kenichi paused, why was Rachel here? Had she moved in while he was unconscious? "Um Apachai? Where is Rachel now?"

"Your friend girl?"

"It's girlfriend Apachai." Kenichi corrected him, he was not quite sure how he should feel about calling Rachel his girlfriend, let alone encouraging Apachai to do the same.

"She's in the dojo practicing with Akisame. Something about 'assessing her teachers'." Apachai replied, not quite sure what assessing meant, though he had heard Akisame say it quite a lot.

"Oh…ok then." Kenichi blanched, she was going to move in, he was screwed, so incredibly screwed beyond his wildest nightmares screwed. He walked to the Dojo, hearing a large amount of 'thuds' and 'whumps'. As he approached, they got steadily louder and louder as well. When he opened the dojo door, much to his surprise, he saw Rachel wearing a Judo outfit, unsurprisingly trying to grapple with Akisame and failing miserably, getting thrown onto the floor with each failed attempt.

"You're swinging your arms too much." Akisame said and he flipped Rachel over his shoulder. She sprang up effortlessly then lunged at him again, trying to grab him between her legs this time, only for Akisame to effortlessly duck and push her in midair, propelling her to slam her spread-eagled into the wall. Rachel quickly closed her legs, and slammed into the wall as if she was standing on it horizontally. She crouched against it and used this position to shoot herself back at him, arms outstretched, trying to grab at the top half of his body. "You're broadcasting your next move far too obviously." Akisame jumped this time and pinned Rachel to the dojo floor with one hand holding her hands and his feet pinning her legs to the ground as well by holding her ankles between his large and index toes on each foot. He'd somehow gotten his feet underneath hers so he wasn't standing on her ankles and putting himself in a position where he could be thrown off by her moving her legs. "Honestly, how do you expect to capture an opponent when you either take so long to launch an attack or give it away so easily?" He used his spare hand to hold Rachel's head to the ground as well, to make sure she couldn't look behind her to pinpoint his location, this had the added effect of having him control where she could twist her body, given that her head was unable to move and her neck was more than likely not as flexible as Siegfried's.

Rachel frowned, true she had been expecting to lose to the masters at Ryozanpaku, but this was even worse than when she fought with her Maestro. He would at least let her grapple him so he could teach her how her opponent would react to the grapples, but this Judo Master just dodged her and tossed her around like a rag doll when she tried to grab him. She spotted Kenichi watching her losing and smiled brightly at him.

"Hi Kenichi! Did you miss me~?" She asked, squirming a bit under Akisame's hold.

"Yeah, I did." Kenichi lied, he hadn't really been conscious long enough to miss anyone.

"Do you concede defeat?" Akisame asked Rachel, he had a feeling if he let her go without her submitting, she'd spring up on him in an instant.

"Aye" She said, banging her head dramatically onto the floor. "I concede to your superior powers."

"I'm not quite sure that was necessary" Akisame mused in his head before releasing the luchador, and helping her stand up.

"Why were you sparring with Master Akisame Rachel?" Kenichi stepped into the dojo so he was standing next to her, though he was starting to like the idea of "friend girl" more. "You know he's a master class fighter and everything…right?"

"Yeah, but I wanted to test myself against your masters, but none of them wanted to fight with me." Rachel said, pouting slightly. "Mr. Akisame agreed to lightly spar against me for a bit though." She said oddly formally.

"Yes well I couldn't very well have her find out that you were knocked unconscious from one kick to the head how could I?" Akisame said before covering his mouth. "Oops, did I say that out loud?" He turned his back to Kenichi and Rachel while Rachel began to dote over Kenichi, hugging him a bit.

"Are you alright? Who hit you so hard? I shall avenge your loss!" She proclaimed posing dramatically, making Akisame snicker quietly. "It is my duty as your girlfriend!" Kenichi silently wished she would stop that.

"Um, Apachai was training with me and he went a bit overboard, that's all!" Kenichi explained, unwrapping his head bandages to show her he was alright. Under the bandages he merely had a small bump on his forehead. He'd received hundreds, possibly thousands of these before and he knew it'd go away overnight.

"Aww, poor Kenichi-kun~" Rachel cooed before kissing the bump. "That make it feel any better?" She asked, still using a slightly overly sweet tone.

"Huh it actually doesn't hurt as much."Kenichi said, finding it unlikely that it was because of Rachel kissing the wound, but more that this had been the only wound he'd received today and he wasn't quite as sore as usual.

"See? It is the power of love~!" She shouted hugging Kenichi tightly enough to where he heard his spine creak.

"You do realize that the kids at school won't know about what happens here right Rachel?" Kenichi shouted, hoping this would snap her out of her lovey-dovey mode before she snapped him like a dry twig.

"Well duh, but it doesn't hurt to be a little affectionate right?" She asked, loosening her tight hug enough for Kenichi to expand his chest, allowing him to breath. She had to admit, his body felt harder than steel when it was pressed against her. His muscles must have been through some intense conditioning to allow him to become this tough and his muscles so dense. The masters here certainly weren't slackers when it came to fighting, or training their disciple. Though she had assumed this from the fact Kenichi had managed to beat not only her brother, but Boris, Radin, and Sho as well.

"If you two are quite finished, I believe it is time for Kenichi to resume his training with Apachai." Akisame said, remaining stoic despite his internal amusement. "We wouldn't want you to not make up for all that time you spent unconscious, would we?" he asked, Kenichi, his eyes glowing faintly as Kenichi gulped.

"No we wouldn't!"Kenichi said, ducking out from Rachel's hug and back stepping towards the dojo's doors.

"But I wanted to spar with you Kenichi~." Rachel said, keeping the distance between Kenichi and herself constant despite his attempts to get to the door before she could react.

"I don't fight girls, sorry Rachel." Kenichi said, fearing this would only make her want to fight him more.

"And why not?" She asked, feeling not so much offended, but irritated that he'd refuse to spar with her.

"It's just how I was raised…sorry." He replied, sighing a bit.

"Then I propose you merely defend against Miss Stanley's attacks, rather than full out fighting her." Akisame approached the pair, moving Rachel a bit further back from Kenichi. "Most of your opponents have focused on punching, kicking or cutting you Kenichi, few besides that Boris fellow have actually aimed to initiate grapples with you, correct?"

"Uhh, yeah actually." Kenichi couldn't remember the last time someone beside's Boris had tried to actually put him in a hold, bar, or lock, rather than punch, kick, spear or cut him with a weapon.

"Then this will be good training for you." Akisame nodded his head at Kenichi reassuringly. "Miss Stanley, please feel free to try any number of your techniques on my disciple." He again nodded at Kenichi. "And I mean any nonlethal techniques."

"Don't worry, I'm not interested in killing him." She replied, standing in a loose stance while Kenichi stood still, calming himself.

"Ok, I just have to activate my Seikuken and defend against her." Kenichi thought, silencing his emotions and his vision focusing on Rachel's whole body, watching every twitch and pulse, trying to anticipate what she'd do so he could defend against it. He couldn't rely on his fighting knowledge he'd gained from fighting Miu or Renka given that Rachel's fighting style was more than a far cry from being like either of their styles. "I'm going to have to focus on her arms a lot. From what I've seen of her fighting style, once she gets her hands on her opponents, it's usually too late, so as long as I manage to deflect her arms, I think I'll be alright." He knew he couldn't use Ryusei Seikuken because it allowed your opponent to get very close to you with its near split second reactions, and he needed to keep Rachel at a safe distance.

Rachel charged Kenichi, her arms outstretched in front of her like she was going to grab his shoulders. Kenichi guessed this was to pin him to the ground so she could put him in some fancy submissive hold or bar. Kenichi held his arms in front of him, anticipating which side she would come from, she was leaning towards the right, but he was prepared to block either or both of her arms. She closed the gap between them, her arms just outside his reach when he started to swing his left arm to intercept her hands, preparing to use his right to harmlessly shove her past him. Much to his surprise, she stopped and leaned in so her face was less than an inch away from his, putting her arms behind her back and kissing Kenichi on the lips. Kenichi's mind was in shock, but his body had already started to block he, now missing arms, so he instead blocked her breasts, making a resounding *SMACK* sound and knocking her to the side.

"Oh for pities sake." Akisame thought as he watch his disciple blush and stand there like an idiot for a second, realizing what had just happened, then rushing to Rachel's side.

"Rachel! I'm so sorry are you ok?" Kenichi asked,, getting on his knees and offering Rachel his hand, he couldn't see her face due to her long blonde hair covering it, so he didn't know how bad she was hurting. To his surprise, but not Akisame's, she grabbed his hand and the whirled around him, pinning his neck under her arms and then intertwining her legs with his, pressing him down to the ground with her body and lifting her legs up so his feet were up in the air. This also pressed her large bust against his back, making him blush more as he cursed himself for not seeing this coming. She'd tried to feign injury in the underground ring fights for the effect it had.

"Mmm, you're too kind Kenichi-kun~" She said as she tensed up her legs, making his legs bend further and rendering them useless to him. "But that kindness won't help you against me~"

"Well Kenichi, how will you get out of this situation?" Akisame asked, sighing a the position his disciple had managed to get himself into.

"How should I know?" Kenichi replied, keeping his neck above the ground so he could breath. "I've never been put in this position before!" he squirmed a bit, finding he could get some wiggle room in and move his legs a bit.

"Hmm, I suppose if you can't get out of a basic hold like this, you certainly will need me to make a new machine to train you. Maybe I'll name it Grapple-kun and it'll shock you if it has you held against it for more than a few seconds."Akisame mused out loud, knowing just what would happen next. Truth be told he already had been working on Grapple-kun when he had heard Kenichi was "dating" Rachel, but he figured it couldn't hurt to mention it a bit earlier than he needed to.

Kenichi's eyes burned with a bright fire, fueled by the fear of being put into a brand new insane invention, he thrust his arms into the ground, pushing himself and Rachel up, but his legs were still being held by Rachel's strong legs.

"Not another invention! Not another invention!"Kenichi thought, gritting his teeth and he found great enough strength within himself to press him legs against the ground with Rachel's body still held onto his. He gave out a great shouted as he stood up, Rachel still trying to take his legs out from under him.

"What did they put him through to give him this much strength?" Rachel thought, true she had expected him to be able to resist her, but outright nullify her hold was something only her maestro hand managed before. That and her breast he'd hit was hurting quite a bit, she doubted it would leave a mark, but it certainly surprised her that he would put that much force into a simple block. There was also something about his eyes when they'd started. They'd looked like he managed to force his emotions out of them and replaced it with a cold and calculating look, like he was looking over her whole body at once without trying. She'd been told by her brother this was an ability called Seikuken. She knew she would have to break his concentration, which was why she kissed him. Admittedly, she hadn't expected him to knock her down with his block, but his worried fit about her after wards was the perfect opportunity to pin him down.

"Your opponent is still holding onto your body Kenichi, how will you get her off?" Akisame asked his now standing disciple. True he'd managed to overpower Rachel, but he couldn't assume that he'd always be able to do that. Especially if she used more advanced holds and bars.

Kenichi knew he'd have to stop and think for a second, Rachel was in his blind spot, he didn't have a sword like Shigure so he couldn't concentrate on a reflection to see what she was up to, nor could he merely bend himself backwards and hope she'd let go. He'd seen that she was very flexible, so that wouldn't do him any good either. He'd have to put her in a bar or hold of his own, her arms were currently holding his shirt. He hated to admit it, but maybe he'd have to take a page out of HIS book.

Rachel tilted her head curiously as she watched Kenichi move his hand and grab his own shirt, then suddenly she found herself on the ground, still holding the shirt as Kenichi shouted, mentally promising to smack himself for it later.

"Niijma Style Shedding Technique!" He threw his shirt to the ground, tearing it in the process, but he at least had Rachel off of his back where she could manipulate him, though he knew that he couldn't depend on that technique now, given that he had now gotten rid of the only thing between Rachel and his upper body.

Akisame raised an eyebrow at Kenichi's actions. It was true that he had managed to get Rachel off of him, but without his shirt, she was now free to grab onto his skin, which he couldn't exactly shed. He was going to make sure that Grapple-kun and an exceptionally good grip so that, when he made Kenichi train with it while he was shirtless, he would know to never expect an opponent to let go of your skin.

"Well, I certainly didn't expect that." Rachel thought as she threw the shirt over her head. Unfortunately for her, this covered her eyes for a moment and in that moment, Kenichi made his move. He charged her semi-prone figure and straddling her legs and pinned her hands above her head. He knew this wouldn't hold her, but if he could make her struggle enough that she'd tire herself out, he could then use Ryusei Seikuken when she didn't have her usual lightning reflexes to counter him and take advantage of the close distance. He knew that is she wasn't tired out or at least somewhat inhibited, he'd never be able to get her to admit defeat, or at least make her to sluggish to be much of a threat.

"And I think that's enough for today." Akisame said, knowing that all Rachel would have to do was make a comment on the possibly sexual nature of the pose they were in and Kenichi would loosen his grip enough for her to get her hands on him once again. Both Kenichi and Rachel looked surprised that he had told them to stop so quickly, both of them struggling against each other.

"But Mr. Akisame we can keep going!" Rachel protested, knowing she could get out of Kenichi's current hold.

"Why stop us now Master Akisame?" Kenichi asked, loosening his grip on Rachel and hopping backwards off of her body.

"This match was going nowhere quickly." Akisame said, predicting that, had Kenichi and Rachel continued, the same situation would come up over and over. Kenichi would pin Rachel and she would make a somewhat sexual or embarrassing comment and Kenichi would let her go. And if Rachel got the upper hand, Kenichi would once again use his extremely built and toughened body to muscle his way out of Rachel's holds. So the match would come down to either Kenichi's limbs breaking or being displaced by Rachel, or Rachel would dislocate her limbs or break them from Kenichi's holds and bars if he managed to ignore her words. Kenichi had more than enough strength to stop Rachel from choking him with her hands or legs, and Kenichi wouldn't be able to put the extremely flexible and fast Rachel into any of those holds that would cut off her windpipes. Either way, he'd be putting someone's limbs back in their socket manually or putting Kenichi in a cast.

"We only had two exchanges!" Rachel protested, standing up dramatically, flipping her hair and waving her arms angrily as her face went from one of shock to extreme irritation. "That's hardly a basis to judge a fight!"

"Regardless, you two should go clean up. If you need transportation home afterwards Rachel, I will provide you with it." Akisame said, knowing he could borrow Sakaki's bike if he asked, if not, he could just run with Rachel on his back.

"Actually" Rachel started to ask, grinning. Kenichi gulped, he knew what was coming next, he feared it. "Do you think I could spend the night here?" Akisame shrugged.

"I see no problem with that, we will set up a room in the dojo for you." He said, slamming his hand on one of the tatami mats and it revealed a futon underneath it, along with few pillows.

"But I wanted-" Rachel began saying before she was interrupted by Akisame.

"Yes yes, you may take your bath before Kenichi, don't worry." Akisame said, walking out of the room a bit more quickly than was necessary. Rachel puffed her cheeks up in irritation as she plopped down onto the floor, sitting cross legged. This Judo master was certainly good at not giving her the spotlight without taking it himself.

"You wanna head to the bath first Rachel?" Kenichi asked, deciding it was best to play along with Akisame's routine.

"No, you go ahead, I have some phone calls to make first." She said, still sitting and still pouting.

"Alright." Kenichi said, sighing a bit as he left the dojo and headed to his room to get his bathing bucket and supplies.

Kenichi passed Miu on his way to the bath, she merely "hmph"ed at him as he went by, making him whimper a he opened the bathroom door and stepped inside the bath house.

"I thought the Elder explained what was going on to her." He muttered as he slid off his towel and turned on the water, sitting on the small bench under the showerhead. "Wait a minute" he muttered as he narrowed his eyes. "The elder doesn't like it that I want to date Miu, what if he told her I was the one who asked Rachel out?" he felt his left eye twitch as he started to get irritated. "That would explain why Miu's still mad at me!" he shouted, standing up and accidentally knocking over his bath bucket. His bar of soap, his shampoo, and his brush slid away from him. As he got up, much to his surprise, Sakaki walked in, also wearing a towel and carrying his own bath bucket, and a saucer of sake.

"Yo Kenichi, everything alright in here?" He shouted loudly, the red tint on his face told Kenichi his karate master was probably more and a bit drunk.

"Y-yeah Master Sakaki." Kenichi said as he hurriedly picked up his soap, shampoo bottle and brush. "Um, why are you here? You usually take a bath alone don't you?"

"Ahh, the old man wants me to "guard" you from your girlfriend, something about she'd probably "attack" you in the bath." Sakaki said very loudly. "But I dunno what he's talkin about myself." He lied. Truth be told he wasn't that drunk at All, but he knew he'd have to act like it in order to get Kenichi not to ask him to leave right away.

Outside the bathouse, a towel clad Rachel had her ear pressed to the door and bit her finger in irritation. She had really wanted to take a bath with Kenichi so she could talk about it at school. Not that she couldn't lie about it, but it'd definitely get her more attention if she had details. But with his master in there as well, there wasn't much she could do by "accident" even if she tried.

"The Elder said… you may try something…like this." She jumped as she heard a woman's voice form behind her.

"When did you get there?" she demanded, not having sensed Shigure's presence at all.

"I've been here…a bit." Shigure said as she was hanging upside down from the rafters attached to the main dojo complex, staring at Rachel with her perpetually bored expression. "I …suggest you go to…the hot springs."' Shigure pointed to the trail away from the dojo that led to the springs. "It's that…way."

"Ah…thank you." Rachel said, deciding that she definitely did not want to fight this woman. She'd heard stories from the Armed Division members of YOMI about the legendary swordswoman from Ryozanpaku. She supposed that, for now, she could just say she'd slept over at Kenichi's house. That would be enough until any more interesting happened. Which, given where she was, she was sure something interesting would happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes, Rachel's first "opponent" (and the first fight of the fic) is Akisame. I'm not too savvy to Judo techniques, I only know some of the VERY BASIC techniques (inside and outside reaps and a few throws) , but given Akisame's unique talents I hope I've managed to keep all his badassery without making him stray too far into a "non-Akisame" way of fighting.

Also, I know that one of Kenichi's opponents in the D of D tournament tried to snap his neck, but other than that, what Akisame has said was true. Most of Kenichi's opponents try to break Kenichi's body through bone crushing punches, kickes, bone shattering grips, knee and elbow strikes. Rachel, Chikage, and Boris are the only ones who use more grapple based fighting, and I use the term grapple loosely in regards to Chikage given that her method of fighting involves zero actually strength. But most of Kenichi's opponent's don't grab his clothes, arms and legs or use locks and bars like a wrestler or luchador would.

Whenever you see this "~" at the end of a sentence, it's supposed to show the speaker is using a very playful tone in their voice. This is mostly going to be used for Rachel and not so much for other characters given that she's more expressive with her voice.

I'm going to try and keep my writing style and the tone of the story similar to that of the Kenichi Manga, so I may write out some things in a particularly silly or possibly sexy way intentionally, or unintentionally. I'm not super sure how to write in the fanservicy-ness of the manga so I'll try not to be cheesy. Again, this is going to be a large amount of experimenting on my part, so please bear with me. ^^' and tell me if it's getting annoying.

Yes, Kenichi took a page out of Niijima's book for once (He's done it before too in canon). Admittedly I won't be having him do that again, Grapple-kun will see to that. I honestly couldn't think of any ways he could have gotten Rachel off that didn't involve him actively trying to hurt her besides this. He can't slam her into the wall, or fall onto her, both positions just give her something to press against, which she could use to press his knees out from under him. Any throws would've resulted in her holding on tighter and making him throw himself along with her, and just landing on her, which again, would be useless.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	3. Lucha Dating and Not So Lucha Training

Kenichi had actually managed to get a good night's sleep, Sakaki had washed his back for him and then walked him to his room before letting him go to bed. The next morning was fairly quiet, though Miu was in a much more pleasant mood than yesterday, so Kenichi was quite happy that she wasn't giving him dirty looks and glares whenever their eyes met.

"You should go wake up Miss Stanley, she is your guest after all, and we wouldn't want her going to school without a meal, would we?" The Elder said, looking at Kenichi and Miu for a moment before he swiped a piece of Kenichi's morning fish. He didn't usually partake in the 'Steal-The-Disciple's-Food' game, but he was still a bit sore towards Kenichi, so he figured he could play along just for today.

"No, certainly not Elder." Kenichi said exasperatedly as he stood up to go get Rachel. He had expected her to have already been up, but apparently Miu had gone to wake her up before and Rachel just kept on sleeping through anything Miu did.

"Hey Rachel? You awake?" Kenichi said loudly at one of the doors into the dojo. He'd learned that asking if someone was awake was vital; Shigure's traps were often set tenfold when she was asleep and he'd made the mistake of trying to enter her room when she slept before and had narrowly dodged the spears, bamboo spikes, maces, and various shuriken and kunai that had greeted him.

"Yes Kenichi?"

"Are you dressed?" He asked, also remembering Shigure's other habit being naked when he'd try to go to her room. He doubted that Rachel would be naked, but he figured he'd ask, just to be safe with Rachel.

"Yes, I have clothes on." She replied from the other side of the door.

"Oh, ok then!" Kenichi said as he opened the door to see Rachel stretching in her bra and underwear, her breast shaking slightly as she bent backwards, putting her arms over her head and performing a bridge. "Gah!" Kenichi quickly closed the door. "I thought you said you were wearing clothes!"

"I am" Rachel replied, giggling at Kenichi's shyness. "I'm doing my morning stretches. What did you need me for?" She asked, her tone becoming less playful and Kenichi heard the sound of her putting her clothes on.

"Breakfast is ready." He said, managing to calm down.

"Alrighty!" Rachel burst out of the dojo, knocking the back of Kenichi's head with the sliding door, knocking him to the ground.

"I'm going to have to be even more careful than before." Kenichi thought, praying that Rachel wasn't going to be this prone to injuring him while she wasn't even trying to fight him.

Breakfast had gone surprisingly smoothly, the masters weren't stealing Kenichi's food because they wanted to look good in front of their guest. After a while, Kenichi and Miu headed out, but found that there were two large men in black suits waiting outside Ryozanpaku's door.

"Excuse me, did you see this girl in here?" One of them asked, sounding extremely polite as he pulled out a picture of Rachel. "Her name is Rachel, and she was supposed to come back to her hotel last night, but she never returned. Someone informed us that she had been seen entering this building." The man knew where he was and who he was talking to, but he also knew that there were five extremely powerful masters behind those doors and he didn't want to fight any of them.

"Yes, she spent the night here. We're sorry she didn't call you" Miu said, rather hurriedly and sounding rather happy to be rid of Rachel. "She should be out shortly."

"Kenichi! We have to walk to school together!" Rachel said, hopping over the wall and landing next to Kenichi. "Can't have anyone doubting that we're dating now can we?"

"You're dating him Ms. Stanley?" The guard asked, looking slightly dumbfounded.

"Mhm~ We're in looove~" She said, wrapping her arms around Kenichi's body and hugging him, pressing her soft chest on his hard back. Kenichi tried to squirm out of her grip, but found it didn't actually do him much good. He was enjoying what was happening, but he didn't want Miu mad at him, and the two men were probably master class fighters who were more than willing to kill him if he upset them. Much to his surprise, the gentleman who hadn't spoken leaned over to Miu and whispered in her ear, an eyebrow raised behind his shaded glasses. Miu nodded, then shook her head in response and the man stood up and shrugged.

"Well, if she's not dating him and he's living with her, he could be dating Miss Castor." He said, his voice gravely and low. "I suppose it possible."

"Huh, well I say we give it a week." The polite one said, shrugging as well and walking away. "Take care of Miss Rachel alright?" He said as they turned and stated to walk away.

"Wh-what just happened?" Kenichi asked, sweat pouring down his brow as he sighed in relief.

"They asked if Rachel had just recently decided this and I said yes." Miu explained. "I guess this means they're not too surprised by this."

"Those two again!" Rachel said, hmphing as she rest her head on Kenichi's shoulder. "They don't let me have any fun, and they don't even pretend to pay attention when I do get the spotlight."

"Huh…I wonder why." Kenichi thought, trying not to laugh nervously. It wasn't that he was against Rachel's bodyguards leaving him alone; it's that someone not giving Rachel attention was a pretty difficult task when you're supposed to be watching her constantly. To be fair, he knew Rachel could take care of herself most of the time, despite not being a master class fighter.

"We really should get to school." Miu said, her voice shaking with irritation as she started walking down the sidewalk, leaving Kenichi and Rachel behind.

"Mhm! Comon Kenichi!" Rachel said, pulling Kenichi's arm as she rushed to catch up with Miu. She didn't have anything against Miu personally, but it would look much more authentic to everyone if she was seen walking to school with her new boyfriend and the girl he was living with.

The sight of Kenichi walking with Rachel wrapped around his arm got people talking immediately. Miu walking next to them, looking rather angry didn't exactly help matters.

"Please let go of my arm Rachel." Kenichi groaned as he tried to separate himself from Rachel, to no avail.

"Not until we get to our class~" She said in a sing-song voice, reveling in all the attention she was getting and all the people around them whispering. She could pick out a few of them expressing shock, while others were discussing that Niijima's article exposing them must have made them stop hiding their love. Others were amazed they hadn't seen this coming for some reason, though even Rachel knew there was no reason for them to hook up at all.

As Kenichi, Rachel and Miu arrived at their classroom Rachel gave Kenichi a long kiss, making his face turn beet red before she went to her classroom. This earned her a murderous glance from Miu, who sat down huffing again, and Renka, who was sitting on the windowsill outside, watching them.

Classes went by as usual, but at lunch Kenichi tried to find a new hiding spot, not only from the Shinpaku alliance, but from his new girlfriend. Miu was eating lunch with the Shinpaku group so he couldn't try and talk to her there without potentially facing their wrath or scolding. He couldn't hide in the water tower thanks to Renka punching a massive hole in it. So he decided to sneak over to the greenhouses and eat in there, near his favorite plant he'd saved from Daimonji when he went on his little rampage after Kenichi had first beaten him.

"Thank god nobody's here." Kenichi thought as he ate his pitiful lunch. He'd peeked inside his lunch box to see, unsurprisingly, Miu had barely given him anything to eat. He actually ate in peace for a few minutes, occasionally talking to his plant about what was going on before sensing a familiar alien presence among his plants. He hid his lunch and started peeking between the nearby leaves, hoping to spot Niijima before he was spotted. He spotted Niijima near some of Chikage's plants which they'd moved into the greenhouse from the garden, but he seemed far more interested in them than looking for anything else at the moment.

"Come out already Kenichi." Niijima said casually, pulling up some data on his PDA before turning and facing where Kenichi's head had been moments ago. "I know you're back there." His Niijima Senses always alerted him to the presence of those who had particularly ill will towards him, and Kenichi was far less than pleased with him right now, so he registered loud and clear.

Kenichi resumed eating his lunch, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, hoping Niijima would just assume he was hearing things and leave him alone. He actually got a few minutes of peace before Niijima's clawed hand grabbed his shoulder, making him jump in the air.

"Come now Kenichi, did you really think you could hide from me?" he asked, cackling manically as Kenichi tried to calm his increased heart rate.

"Did you find out who printed that article yet?" Kenichi asked once he calmed down.

"Nope." Niijima said, looking oddly casual about the fact he couldn't find some information.

"Why do you look so calm then?" Kenichi shouted, this was definitely not normal for Niijima.

"Oh, in exchange for saying a few…things, Rachel has given me some good info about Yami." Niijima said, beaming, his sharp pointy teeth gleaming.

"What kind of information on Yami?" Kenichi asked, deciding he'd rather hear the good news first.

"Oh, the identities of a few companies they have power over, some names of politicians she'd overheard, and a bit of insight on their training methods, or at least the ones she goes through." Niijima said, showing Kenichi his PDA screen with a large wall of text on it displaying the information he'd received. "I dare say we have quite a lot to gain from you two dating."

"Yeah, and what exactly did you SAY in order to get this information?" Kenichi asked, bracing himself for some less than pleasant news.

"Oh you know, just a few rumors to spice up your dating life nothing too major." Niijima said flippantly, poking a few buttons on his PDA screen and looking back at Chikage's plants.

"Define nothing major." Kenichi's right eye twitched as he felt a vein on his forehead start pulsing.

"Oh just how I saw her stay over at the dojo, and maybe something about you two sleeping in the same room." Niijima grinned casually, knowing he was earning himself a beating, but it was worth it for what he was getting out of the deal. Information on Yami was hard to get, even for him, and now he had a direct access to some of their most secret information. Like hell he was going to pass up this opportunity to milk it for all it was worth, he didn't care if Kenichi and Rachel had to "date" for a year if it got him the juiciest information, it was A-OK with him.

"You what?" Kenichi replied dead panned, while half of that information was true, but the other half implied way too many things for him to accept.

"Well, I had to say something to get her to spill the beans. " Niijima calmly replied as he turned his back to Kenichi and headed for the door. "By the way, you have about ten seconds before she finds you, I suggest you prepare yourself." Niijima added, pointing to the greenhouse roof as he opened the door and left. Kenichi looked confused for a second before looking up where Niijima had pointed and seeing Rachel, squatting on the roof trying to silently open one of the glass panes right above his head, giving him a full view of her underwear up her skirt. Kenichi turned red and twitched, how had she found him? Only a few people actually knew he liked hiding in the greenhouses and taking to plants, unless.

"Niijima you bastard." Kenichi twitched again, grabbing his book bag and bolting for the door, but Rachel jumped off the roof, landing on him and hugging him with her legs.

"Hi there Kenichi~" Rachel said, leaning down and hugging him, her legs holding his so he couldn't run.

"H-hi Rachel, how're you doing?" Kenichi replied, trying to wiggle out of her grasp.

"Oh pretty good, you know there are still ten minutes left in our lunch break. We should eat together." She more demanded than implied. "That's what a boyfriend and girlfriend do after all."

"Yeah, that's true." Kenichi said, groaning a bit as Rachel got off of him and started to go through her backpack and pull out a lunchbox. He could try and run, but now that Rachel knew his main hiding place, aside from the water tower, he really didn't think he'd manage to escape this time.

"Where's your lunch Kenichi?" Rachel asked, leaning in and seeing Kenichi's lunch box only had a dried up looking fish and a few grains of rice left in it.

"Oh, I ate the other half of it before you found me." Kenichi said, his voice sounding exasperated as he remembered that the other dried up fish and what he thought was some squid weren't exactly substantial for him.

"Do you want some of mine?" Rachel offered as she opened her box, revealing a large amount of rice, some pills, a deli sandwich, and a pudding cup.

"You sure?" Kenichi asked.

"Of course, as long as I can feed it to you." Rachel replied, smiling. She'd done some research before on what lovey-dovey couples did and knew that feeding each other was considered pretty significant in Japan. Kenichi blushed, his immediate instinct to say no being overridden by his loudly rumbling stomach.

"S-sure why not?" He replied, forcing a smile." But I thought Yami monitored your diets very strictly, wouldn't they get mad at you if you were sharing your lunch?"

"Not really." Rachel replied, opening the pudding cup and getting a scoop of it out and offering it to Kenichi. He opened his mouth obligingly as she slowly slid the spoon into his mouth, letting him scoop the jello off with his tongue and then pulling out the spoon out. "The pills are all that are really 'required' by Yami for us to eat, I'm not on a super strict diet like Chikage or anything. My Maestro told me I could always eat a few other things as well. After all, one can't have a very lucha day if you don't eat something you like, now can you?" She explained while getting a spoonful of pudding for herself, offering Kenichi the spoon handle. "Now you feed me."

"S-seriously?"Kenichi half shouted, taking the spoon's handle slowly, making sing sure Rachel wasn't just kidding around with him.

"Mhm! It's only romantic if they boyfriend and girlfriend feed each other isn't it?" She replied opening her mouth as well. "Ahhhh" Kenichi blushed as she slowly put the spoonful of pudding into Rachel's mouth, letting her suck off the pudding before pulling the spoon out and handing it back to her. He'd often fantasized about doing this sort of thing with Miu, but never had the opportunity before. The rest of their meal went the same way, Kenichi and Rachel alternating between feeding each other the rice, then they split the deli sandwich eating quietly.

"Ahh, that was pretty good Rachel." Kenichi said, smiling as he patted his belly.

"Thanks, I made it myself." Rachel replied, packing her box back into her backpack. "We'll I'll see you after class Kenichi sweetie~" She said, giving him a kiss on the cheek before heading towards the main school building.

"She's not so bad after all." Kenichi thought to himself. He had honestly expected her to make much more of a production of them eating lunch together, let alone allow them to eat in such a secluded area away from the public eye. Or so he thought until he heard a twig snap off to his left. He stood up and bolted towards the source of the sound, reaching his hand foreword and grabbing someone's clothes, though it didn't feel like the school uniform. "Who's there?" he shouted, swearing that if it was Niijima taking pictures in a bush disguise he was going to try and smash that damn PDA of his once and for all.

"Goddamn twigs got me caught." A very familiar voice from the bushes said. Much to his surprise, and terror, he had grabbed Sakaki's leather jacket." You can let go now Kenichi."

"AH! Master Sakaki what are you doing here?" Kenichi shouted, instantly releasing his grip on Sakaki's jacket.

"The elder asked me to make sure that nothing funny was goin' on between you and Rachel. Seems like you two are playing the part of a happy couple pretty damn well though." Sakaki said, giving Kenichi an accusing glare, trying to shift the blame from him to his disciple.

"Well yeah…aha…"Kenichi twiddled his fingers a bit, unable to come up with an actual reply to that statement. Then both Master and disciple heard another twig snap and they both turned to the bush near them, each grabbing a man in a large black suit. "You guys again?" Kenichi shouted, immediately letting go of the man's suit and brushing it off before bowing apologetically.

"We were told to watch and make sure you weren't blackmailing Miss Stanley into this relationship." The one with the gruff voice replied as he was being held in the air by Sakaki.

"Well we're not, so scram!" Sakaki replied, forcefully tossing he man into his partner. "Geez, these Yami guys are always snooping around aren't they?" Sakaki replied.

"Yeah, because you guys don't trial me and Miu everywhere we go all the damn time." Kenichi thought sarcastically, giving his master an equally accusing glare.

"H-hey! Don't look at me like that Kenichi!" Sakaki said, a bit unnerved by his disciple's dirty look. "But seriously, be careful. If Yami's sending these gorillas to keep an eye on you two, you can bet that they're gonna be watching you two twenty four seven. I feel like going for a quick drink so I'll leave you to your schoolwork, don't be late getting home again or else Akisame said he's got a few new inventions for you to try out." And with that, Sakaki jumped into the trees, catapulting himself towards the nearest bar. His first jump shook quite a few of the trees, dislodging a very irritated looking Niijima, who was holding a few small twigs that fell from his grasp, along with his PDA falling from his hands and landing near Kenichi's feet, a picture of Kenichi and Rachel feeding each other on the display.

"Niijima…how long were you there?" Kenichi shouted, picking up the PDA and holding it furiously, his hand shaking.

"Ohh, long enough." Nijima replied., standing up and brushing himself off. Truth be told he had never left, hell, the ladder he had used to climb up the tree was still against the tree, out of Kenichi's line of sight. "Now if you'd be so kind as to give me…STOP THAT!" Niijima shouted as he watched Kenichi bash his PDA against his knee, trying to break the demonic device.

"Why! Won't! It! Break?" Kenichi shouted, kneeing the PDA harder and harder with each word, but the device showed no signs of even registering Kenichi's attempts to break it. Kenichi eventually got so desperate he started biting it, hoping to at least ruin the touch screen before Niijima wrenched it out of his hands.

"My technology would not break no matter what you did to it! KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE-AUGH!" Niijima was laughing maniacally when Kenichi punched him in his stomach, just to shut him up as he headed back to his classroom, forgetting his lunchbox, which Niijima grabbed, laughing wheezily. "Ke…ke…ke… oh the things I will do for my information." He said quietly, smiling wickedly before placing a tiny microphone in a corner of the box and adding a false bottom to it, making it so Kenichi wouldn't even notice his box was bugged.

The rest of the day passed smoothly, Kenichi was continually given the cold Shoulder by Miu despite his best efforts to explain what was really going on. When the final bell rang, as if the bell was a cue, Rachel slid the door to Kenichi's classroom open and walked over to him, hugging him enthusiastically.

"Kenichi~ I think we should go out today, how about you~?" She asked, tugging him quickly out of the classroom before he could even answer.

"Agh! Wait a minute!" Kenichi tried to say as he tried to regain his balance. Rachel tugging him around with is head pressed onto her collar was throwing him off as he tried to hop on one foot to keep up with Rachel's full running speed.

"Aww, what's the matter, don't you wanna go out with me?" Rachel asked, pouting slightly as she stopped moving full speed, stopping when they reached the river area where She and Kenichi had fallen into the previous day. In truth, she had dragged him there to get away from the Shinpaku Alliance members and that Renka girl. She knew they would interrupt any time the two had alone.

"Rachel, I need to get back to Ryozanpaku." Kenichi explained calmly.

"Aww, but why? Can't training wait until later?" She asked, pouting more and using a very childish voice.

"No, it really can't trust me." Kenichi replied, walking towards Ryozanpaku quickly. As much as he'd like to go out and see a movie or something like that, he knew his masters would train him to the point of near death if he missed almost two days of training without their permission, let alone to spend it on a date.

"Aww, can I at least join in on your training with you then?" Rachel asked, curious as to what the masters at Ryozanpaku could possibly have done to make someone so good at martial arts as Kenichi. Niijima had shown her Kenichi's gym records prior to his discipleship at Ryozanpaku and he was well below average. But in under a year he had managed to be able to take on the likes of Shou and her brother, two people even she would have extreme difficulty defeating. Whatever they were doing behind those wooden doors must be something beyond even what Yami's scientific geniuses could come up with to train a human body.

"Uhh…sure I guess." Kenichi said weakly, not too keen on anyone having to suffer Ryoznpaku's training methods, including himself. "But you'll have to ask my masters first." Kenichi hoped that he could at least get a no out of The Elder and Sakaki, he knew Apachai would just be thrilled to have a second disciple, Shigure didn't train him enough and she probably wouldn't mind either, Akisame definitely had something planned involving Rachel, Kenichi knew that for sure, and Ma was unlikely to turn down Rachel especially if it meant he got opportunities to take photos of her in sweat covered training clothes.

"Ok." Rachel replied, walking happily next to Kenichi.

When the "couple" arrived at Ryozanpaku, Kenichi casually opened the doors with one hand, he had long ago gained the strength necessary to do so, and someday hoped he could open then with just two fingers like Miu and The Elder could. Akisame was sitting in the yard with some blue prints lying in front of him; he seemed to be measuring the height of the dojo's roof from the ground, then the distance from the roof to the nearby trees, making a note after each measurement.

"Oh, hello you two. Don't mind me, I'm just making some blueprints for my newest machine." He casually said as he looked at Kenichi and Rachel as they entered the dojo, Kenichi closing the doors behind them.

"And you need the measurements for outside the dojo as well for this invention?" Rachel asked, a bit surprised that a machine Ryozanpkau was using would take up so much space.

"Oh, it just needs to have to appropriate reach is all, can't have Kenichi esca- dodging it too easily now can we?" Akisame asked with a chuckle, making Kenichi pale slightly.

"That reminds me, do you mind if I join in on Kenichi's training until this whole incident is resolved? I'm sure I can keep up with whatever he had to do." Rachel stated confidently.

"Well if you really want to, It's Apachai's turn to start off today so I hope you're good at dodging." Akisame said, "You don't mind do you Apachai?" he shouted at a nearby wall, knowing Apachai was waiting behind it, eager to surprise Kenichi with his new training equipment. Apachai had bought new pads with the money he had helped Sakaki win at the horse races.

"Apa! Not at all! Look Kenichi! New training gear!" he shouted, hopping from behind the wall and presenting Kenichi with his new pads and headgear. "Sakaki helped me pick them out, so you should be extra safe now!"

"Wow, thanks for the new equipment Apachai!" Kenichi said happily. True he doubted he would survive the new set of concussion the day would bring, but he at least knew Apachai was trying not to beat him mercilessly without protecting him.

"Oh, uhh...I guess you can use Kenichi's other gear if you want." Apachai said, offering Rachel Kenichi's older gear, which, while quite worn, certainly did its job.

"You can have my new gear if you want Rachel." Kenichi offered, this was her first time training with Apachai and he definitely wasn't going to be gentle about it, especially after she said she could handle anything Kenichi could.

"No, no it's quite alright. I'm sure I'll be just fine." Rachel said, confident in her own body.

"Ok…"Kenichi said, heading to his room to change, Rachel heading to the Dojo area to change as well. She was wearing a dogi just like Kenichi, pads at her knees, elbows, head, and boxing gloves on. Kenichi had to admit, for the first few minute of training, Rachel managed to block almost all of Apachai's punches, though she did miss a few and got hit in the torso those times. Apachai would stop and let her recover, just like he did with Kenichi, and then came the Apa Kick.

Kenichi didn't know which caused this newest black out, the concussive force of him hitting The Elder's bonsai tree and consequently breaking off a limb, his immediate contact with Ryozampaku's stone wall that followed, or maybe it was when he hit his head on the ground. He noticed, midflight that Rachel had hit a branch, breaking it as well, but she shot off at an odd angle and did the equivalent of a belly flop into the stone wall. He assumed she was knocked out as well, because when he came to, he heard her coughing and spluttering due to whatever foul drink Ma had dumped into their mouths to raise them from near-death.

"Apa…ooops." Apachai said apologetically.

"What happened? I remember being kicked…then a tree." Rachel said, clutching her pounding head, the entire front of her body feeling like she had received a large amount of Deigo Tick Drivers.

"Erm Apachai kicked us and I think you hit the wall" Kenichi said, pointing to the visibly cracked wall near where they were lying. "I'm pretty sure I'm that dent" he pointed to the other wall where a vaguely human shaped dent was being repaired by Sakaki, who looked like he was in a foul mood

"And…this is normal for you?" Rachel asked, half exasperated, half concerned for not only her own health, but Kenichi's.

"Yeah, pretty much." He said, grunting as he got up and walked back over to Apachai as if nothing had happened. "erm, you can sit this out if you want." He offered, watching Rachel shakily get to her feet.

"No, I said I could keep up with you and I will." she said as she started walking back towards Kenichi "It wouldn't' be very lucha of me to go back on what I said now would it?"

"Eheh…if you say so Rachel." Kenichi replied, really hoping she'd just sit out Apachai's training at least, he knew whatever Sakaki, Ma, and Akisame had planned for him were nowhere near as dangerous as this.

At the end of the day Rachel was very sore, she had gotten three more concussions from Apachai's training, the large Karate master had bound her legs and made her walk on her hands as he moved herself and Kenichi foreword at what felt like a full running speed. She had done a similar exercise with her Maestro several times she managed to keep up with Kenichi the entire time. Then she and Kenichi had been tied over an open fire and forced to do crunches and then thrust her body foreword in an odd reverse mid-air crunch to avoid her hair catching fire despite the fact she'd put it in a knot at the base of her neck. Kenichi almost seemed used to this despite the fact he was swinging madly back and forth to avoid his hair burning as well, his face one of pure terror. If they started to move slower, The Judo master would fan the flames, forcing them to go faster again to avoid any heat burns. Though she swore she saw him taking pictures of them from time to time, and last, but not least they had introduced her to a stance called horse stance, taught her how to stand in it, then told her to hold her arms out. She instantly regretted this as she suddenly had bands with metal spikes attached slid up to the tips or her arms, if she moved her arms, the spikes poked her painfully and made her go back into the proper position. Then she was holding two large pots filled with what seemed to be boiling water, a smaller tea cup was placed on her head, her feet tied in their current positions to a wooden board with an incense stick sticking up right beneath her butt, threatening to painfully burn her if she tried to sit down or relax.

"Now hold this stance as long as you can." The Kempo master said, before opening up a magazine with near naked women on it before laying down and reading, not even looking at Rachel or Kenichi, who had the exact same setup as her. She had faltered in her stance only twice, once her legs had given out, causing her to slightly burn herself before she shot back up into her stance, and another time her grip had slipped, causing one of the pots to drop nearby and splash the hot water onto her toes. The Kempo Master applied a strange green colored lotion to the area the water had it, soothing the pain immediately. After that, they had dinner, both she and Kenichi not receiving much food despite her best efforts to grab some more from one of the masters, which failed miserably. She then showered, was given a look over from the Judo master who made sure she wasn't injured in any way, and headed to her make-shift bed in the dojo.

"Geez, no wonder he got better. If he can handle this, I'm not surprised at all that he managed to beat Ethan and Shou." She mused as she lay on the dojo floor. She heard a faint sound come from the ceiling before she saw the Weapons Mistress hanging upside down on the rafters, holding out a tray of tea and some large rice cakes to her.

"Kenichi…said to…give these...to you…as thanks." She said bluntly before setting the tray down next to Rachel. "Are you…injured…anywhere?... I will…treat you." She said, very slowly.

"Um, no…I'm not hurting anywhere particularly badly." Rachel said, caught a bit off guard by this master's gentle approach and blunt mannerisms. "Did you already do this for Kenichi?"

"Yes." The Weapons mistress answered simply. "He told me...to do...this for you…as well."

"Oh, well thank you." Rachel said, making a mental note to thank Kenichi tomorrow as she sipped her tea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author Notes~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes Rachel is being flirty and getting Kenichi in all sorts of trouble in this chapter, lucky guy ain't he?

I had the Yami men be calm, rather than just assault Kenichi because

A. they were in front of Ryozanpaku, it's near suicide to attack him there in front of people like The Elder, Sakaki and Apachai.

B. Not all members of Yami are homicidal maniacs, Akira Hongo (Shou's previous master), Sehrul Rahman (Ethan's Master), and even Siaga Furinji (Miu's dad and the Head of Yami) are pretty calm and civil individuals in and outside of combat.

Cannot type innuendos…sounds…so…goddamn cheesy.*bangs head on desk*

And, just to clear this up, yes, Rachel calls Akisame a Judo master in the previous chapter, he is a Jujitsu master. This was an intentional mistake seeing as many Americans (myself included before I read this series) thought they were the same thing. I'm pretty sure Rachel would make this mistake despite her immense knowledge because she would learn the counters to the lock, bars and holds which are both taught in Judo and Jujitsu. Jujitsu came first, then Judo was developed from it, so the similarities are not too hard to see.

I change what people are called depending on who our current "host" is. When we had Chikage, I referred to Kenichi and Band-aid, and Rachel as Castor, just as she does in series, rather than by their names, even when not in direct thought or speech, as long as she was out "host". So I had Rachel call Akisame a Judo master rather than a Jujitsu master. I'm rather glad so many of you caught this, but there is the full explanation for it.

And of course. WELCOME RACHEL TO TRAINING FROM HELL, PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEAT NEXT TO THE BOY WHO SEEMS TO HAVE DIED A FEW TIMES IN JUST THE PAST FEW MINUTES! ENJOY YOUR STAY!

Seriously though, I'm confident that everything Ryozanpkau has thrown at Kenichi to get him where he is, is way more intense than anything Yami or YOMI has been doing. They seem to be following the more scientific approach to training and trying to use orthodox methods of training someone. As opposed to Ryozanpaku's very unorthodox and possibly life threatening methods.


	4. Lucha Services Delivered Daily

Much to his surprise, Kenichi found Rachel awake first the next day, mostly because when he woke up she was straddling him and gently shaking his shoulders in just her bra and panties.

"Comon Kenichi, you have to get up for school." She cooed, causing him to blush and bolt against the back wall of his room to not only get away from Rachel, but to cover up his "How-To" book collection

"How did you get in here?!" he shouted rather loudly "I locked the door!" He thought something like this might happen, so he had locked his door and windows just to be safe. He knew this was right about the time that Miu would come walking around to wake him up, and the last thing he needed was her helping the rumor mill Niijima was creating by seeing something and misinterpreting it.

"Oh, your Teacher showed me how to get in here from the rooftop." Rachel explained, pointing to the beams and rafters above their heads, causing Kenichi to twitch. He had not planned for Shigure assisting Rachel in her escapades.

"Ok, seriously, you have to hide!" Kenichi said, he could hear Miu's footsteps coming down the hallway and he noticed Rachel's ears perk up a bit too as they got closer.

"Ohh, I see what's going on~" Rachel said with a grin that only caused Kenichi to worry more. "you don't wanna get caught with me, do you?"

"Yes! I'm so glad you understand…why are you still grinning like that?" Kenichi asked, his initial surge of joy quickly quelled and transformed into panic by the manic look of glee on Rachel's face. "Rachel…what're you planni-!" he was interrupted by Rachel grabbing him by the nightshirt, with one hand, pulling him onto the futon, and throwing the blanket over them with her other hand, just as he heard Miu start to open the door.

"Kenichi it's time to wake-" Miu stopped her cheerful wake-up call when she saw Rachel on top of Kenichi, who had a very red face and seemed to be visibly struggling against the girl on top of him.

"It's not what you think I swear!" Kenichi shouted, trying to push Rachel off of him, but he only managed to place his hand on her chest and look like he was groping her.

"Mmm, aren't you feeling feisty this morning Kenichi~!" Rachel said playfully, leaning onto his hands a bit more, causing his nose to bleed as he held back with all his might not to squeeze her breasts.

"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes, if neither of you are down there by then it'll all be gone!" Miu said quickly, slamming the door behind her hard enough to make some of Kenichi's books fall off the shelf and knock both him and Rachel out.

When Kenichi and Rachel woke up the second time, Akisame was standing over them looking pensive, as if he could not determine whether to laugh at his disciples situation, feel pity for him, separate them and shake them awake, or just gently rouse them seeing as they weren't going to be getting any breakfast and they didn't need any more suffering this early in the morning.

"Master Akisame! Please tell me you managed to save us some food!" Kenichi said as he quickly glanced at the clock and realized they'd been out for a good twenty minutes.

"Sadly, I could not." Akisame said as Rachel woke up and rubbed her head gently, sitting off to the side of Kenichi. "The Elder was rather ravenous this morning and when you two didn't show up, he and Apachai ate your shares of the meal." This news caused Kenichi to groan and hang his head in dismay.

"Well, I suppose I'll just have to wait until lunch to eat then." Kenichi said, sighing as Akisame threw him and Rachel their clothes and school bags.

"I did get all your things though, and I put in a special lunch coupon for you. Just show it to your principal and he'll let you eat for free today." Akisame said, smiling a bit.

"Since when were you and the Principal on such friendly terms?" Kenichi asked, raising an eyebrow as he put on his shirt.

"Haha, let's just say he and I meet eye to eye on a few things." Akisame said mysteriously as he shifted out of the room with his Willow Walk technique, closing the door silently. Kenichi and Rachel looked on, both thoroughly confused and equally curious as to how he managed to be so vague and aggravatingly know-it-all-ish all at once.

"Does he do that often?" Rachel asked, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

"Thankfully no, but sometimes a lot of the things he says go right over my head." Kenichi admitted, deciding that, whatever his master and the principal agreed on was their business, as long as it didn't hurt him in any way. "You should hear his explanation of love sometime. I STILL don't know how Plato, Marx, AND Buddha were related to the discussion, but he sure managed to work them in there."

"…well ok then!" Rachel said, grabbing Kenichi's hand as he headed towards the door. "We should get going to school, I'm sure Miu already left so we better hurry up!"

"Yeah…she probably did." Kenichi said, sinking his head.

"Aww, common now, at least you get to walk to school with your gorgeous and lucha girlfriend." She said, flipping her hair as they walked through the dojo to the huge gates.

"Forgive me if I withhold my enthusiasm." Kenichi replied dryly as the approached the gate and pushed open the smaller side door, holding it for Rachel as she walked through. He sighed, knowing he was condemning himself to another day of dodging nearly everyone he knew, especially Niijima.

As the school day went on Kenichi noticed the members of the Shinpaku Alliance, who were all in classes other than his, were "mysteriously" finding reasons to come walk by his classroom. It was like they were taking shifts to check up on him. _"Can't they just ask Rachel about what's going on?"_ He shuddered as he realized what she'd probably tell them, and suddenly found great pleasure in seeing them walking by every five minutes or so. Though when he spotted Siegfried of all people, he knew Niijima must've been up to something, because Siegfried graduated, and actually waved hello to Kenichi as he walked by, rather than just intently stare at him like the others did. Much to his surprise, the girl next to him, Makoto, whom he barely knew anything about, handed him a letter with a small flower stamped in the corner.

"It's from her." Makoto said, pointing a finger across the room to Izumi, who instantly looked away and suddenly found the chalkboard very interesting, despite the fact that they were just reviewing for a test they were going to have next week. She always did frighteningly well on tests, rivaling Miu in sheer IQ.

Kenichi propped up his notebook and opened the envelope silently, sliding out the letter and stashing the envelope in his desk as he read the small square of paper.

_"I know it's not my place to ask, but when did you start dating out Miss Stanley? And will she be coming to the gardening club with you?"_

Kenichi blinked, and reread the letter, wondering how much he could diffuse the situation between himself and Izumi, who he did converse with regularly during club times. Dragging Chikage into the club had certainly made her happy, but he knew Izumi wasn't exactly "lucha" enough for Rachel. Though he wished to smack himself for rating someone's "luchaness". He hastily scribbled back a note that read _"It's complicated, meet me by the water tower during lunch."_ and handed it to Makoto, who passed it down the row until it reached Izumi. Since his water tower hiding spot was now not only ruined, but completely exposed, he figured Niijima wouldn't plan on him hiding in there so soon. Especially after Rachel had pinned his location down in the greenhouses so soon, he figured she'd go look there first.

When the lunch bell rang, Kenichi grabbed his bag and, deciding to pull off, in his mind, a very Shigure like stunt, by quietly sneaking out the window, close it behind him, then scuttle to the side of the building where he wouldn't run into any windows, and crawl up it like a strange spider. Thankfully, he managed to do this very quickly, nobody was outside to see his stunt climbing, and when they were, he'd already climbed the chain link fence and headed for the water tower, hiding under it to wait for Izumi to show up. He noticed that nobody had spotted the damage to the water tower, so the Renka sized hole was still there.

A few minutes of waiting, and he heard the door open, deciding not to risk possible exposure to Rachel or Niijima, he jumped into the tower, landing silently, then stuck his head through the hole to see if he could spy if it was a boy or girl who had come by, if it was a girl, he'd bet it was Izumi, he knew Rachel didn't bother adhering to the dress code so she'd stick out, and if it was a guy, he'd just hide in the tower until they left. Much to his pleasure, it was Izumi, who had poked her head under the water tower tank to see if he had been hiding under it.

"Did he see you?" Kenichi asked, narrowing his eyes and scanning the immediate area for any traces of Niijima.

"Did …who see me?" Izumi asked, crawling under the tower, "and did you put this hole here Kenichi?!"

"Niijima and no, quickly get in!" he said, feeling mildly like his father had described when he'd been telling Kenichi stories about his days as an undercover investigator. He offered her a hand as she sat opposite him in the tank. Her face a mix of confusion and curiosity.

"So why did we have to meet here? And why are you worried about Niijima finding this out?" She asked, feeling a bit worried when he covered the hole with a picnic blanket and turned on a flashlight, placing it dead center and aiming it up at the top of the tank, the light reflecting enough that they could see the entire tank fairly well. She couldn't help but blush because she felt this was quite romantic, the two of them, alone someplace nobody would think to look for them during lunch.

"I just really don't want to be found by Niijima right now, this entire thing is his fault." He said, pulling out his lunch and seeing Miu had only given him a few grains of rice and a very burnt something that resembled a fish.

"So you didn't ask out Miss Stanley?" Izumi said, her mood lightening considerably and her tone perking up.

"No, it's all his fault." Kenichi said, his voice full of venom when he mentioned Niijima.

"Um, how is it his fault that you're dating Miss Stanley, is he blackmailing you into it?" She asked, suddenly sounding very irritated. "because that would explain why the rumors of how you started dating were so…extreme."

"I guarantee whatever you heard was a lie, a very elaborate and well weaved story only someone like Niijima could make." He said, sighing as he finished his pitiful lunch, putting it back in his backpack. "The truth is-"

"Oh hello Niijima!"

"Hello Izumi, Kenichi! I was looking for you!" Niijima said, wrapping his clawed hand around Kenichi's shoulder. Kenichi wished he could throw Niijima through the tank, but he restrained himself. Izumi was one of the few people who didn't treat him differently because of his martial arts talents, and he didn't want her to witness him using it to cause harm to him "friend".

"How did you get in here?!" Kenichi demanded, gripping Niijima's hand tighter than he probably needed to get his point across.

"I was here the whole time, hiding in the shadows." Niijima said mysteriously. He'd actually put a special Haruno Style Camouflage Blanket in the tank, that allowed him to hide above it, and project the image of the top of the tank at the same time, and listened in on the conversation, and decided when to leap down to interrupt Kenichi. Kenichi twitched in response to his vague answer.

"And what do you want Niijima?" Kenichi asked, still debating on whether or not to try and throw him through the tank's wall.

"Oh your girlfriend is looking for you, something about "special food coupons", utter nonsense if you ask me, but she seemed adamant about finding you, so I said I'd find you anyway." Niijima replied casually, grabbing Kenichi's bag and feeling for anything odd, quickly pulling out a small carved Buddha statue with Akisame's signature. "I suppose that's what this is then."

"Huh, The Principal did like Akisame Sensei's carvings…I guess we get food in exchange for this?" Kenichi thought, snatching back his things form Niijima.

"Um, so what were you gonna tell me Kenichi?" Izumi said, fidgeting a bit where she sat.

"He was about to say-NGYA!" Niijima was cut off by Kenichi stepping on his foot hard.

"I'll tell you later Izumi, it was nice having lunch with you, but I gotta go give this to the Principal." Kenichi said, hopping down out of the tower, going around to the top, and opening it, offering Izumi his hand to pull her out. "and whatever you do, ignore what Niijima tells you." He finished as she took his hand, blushed, and was pulled out of the tower and gently put on the ground by Kenichi.

"Uh huh…ok…" she said, begin in a bit of a daze that not only had she eaten with Kenichi, but he'd said he enjoyed their time together and held hands with him. She wandered off, her face still a bit red.

"Now Kenichi I hardly think that was GAHH!" Niijima was cut off again by Kenichi stepping on his hands and glaring down at him.

"Let me make this clear Niijima." Kenichi started, a dark look on his face. "You will not, I repeat, NOT tell Rachel, or ANYONE about this. Izumi has already been assaulted and almost kidnapped because of her association with me, and I will not allow you to send Rachel after her, understood?"

"My my~ aren't we the defensive one?" Niijima taunted, praying Kenichi would just get too mad and leave.

"So what're we not telling me about Izumi?" Rachel said, her head tilted to the side as she was dragging an unconscious Izumi behind her, causing Kenichi to pale. "Because she just ran into me around the corner and fainted."

"Oh thank god." Kenichi said, stamping on Niijima's hand again before jumping down. "She wanted to know if you were going to be coming with me to the gardening club meetings and I wanted to try and meet somewhere that the others wouldn't see us."

"Ah, well I suppose I can come with you to the Gardening Club." Rachel said, not missing the fact that she belonged in the "others" category in Kenichi's explanation. "Let's head to the Principal's office and get our lunches!" she said enthusiastically. "But you go on ahead a little and wait for me inside ok~? I'll give Izumi to Niijima over there." She said, pointing to Niijima who was once again crawling out of the tank's top, much like a spider.

"Actually I think we should take Izumi to the nurse's office." Kenichi said, holding out his arms. "I'll carry her if you like, I'd rather not leave her with Niijima, he may try to brainwash her."

"Erm, ok. How about you take her down to the nurses office, I have a few questions for him anyway." Rachel said, unceremoniously tossing the unconscious Izumi into Kenichi's arms. She wondered how he thought Niijima could possibly brainwash anyone without extensive time and equipment.

"Um…ok." Kenichi said, finding it odd Rachel hadn't made a huge fuss about finding him with Izumi. Though he thought it might be because their only "audience" was Niijima, who could care less about such things. "I'll see you at the Principal's Office then." Kenichi said, dashing around the building top to the door, figuring the sooner he got Izumi to the Nurse's Office, the sooner he could get some food and relax.

After the door closed behind her, Rachel stepped forward and grabbed Niijima by the collar.

"So, are you going to tell me what's really going on here?" Rachel asked, knowing that finishing her threat would waste precious time she could be spending with Kenichi.

"Why is it everyone seems to want to manhandle me?" Niijima asked confidently, knowing any threat Rachel made would fall flat because she wanted him alive to spread the news about her and Kenichi as it developed. "But as for what those two were doing, it was nothing interesting. He merely tried to tell her what was really going on but I interrupted him before he could spill the beans." Rachel let him go, huffing indignantly.

"And why do you think he wanted to tell her?" Rachel asked, grinding her teeth and crossing her arms.

"Probably because she's his friend." Niijima said, pulling out his PDA and writing in notes on what had happened. "Even before his 'rebirth' with martial arts she was pretty nice to him and one of the few Garden Club members who stuck around after they realized Kenichi actually wanted to garden, and not just laze around in the greenhouse." He explained calmly, writing notes not to send people to ask Izumi about Kenichi because she was now listed under "do not recruit or inquire".

"Ah, so a love rival appears!" Rachel said triumphantly "ohh, between her and the Furinji girl, a love rectangle will be great!" She squeaked in excitement slightly.

"So I have to ask, why didn't you make a big deal about him obviously meeting another girl in private?" Niijima inquired, readying his PDA. Anything he could do to control Rachel when he needed her to be discreet was probably information even Yami didn't have now that her master was incarcerated. And the information to control a wild card enemy was potentially the greatest info he could have.

"I got a taste of his training yesterday." She replied, causing Niijima to wince, remembering the few times he'd dared to spy on Ryozanpaku and remembering the unique brand of hell Kenichi was going through there every day. "I can give him one break."

"If you say so." Niijima said, shrugging and making a note that Rachel, despite her flamboyancy and general disregard for other's wills, did appreciate hardships of others. Though he thought this might be because she was personally subjected to it, and not just outright empathy for Kenichi's plight.

"Well I do, so there." Rachel said, huffing again. "So what's the latest on our little fraud?" she asked, seeing if she'd have to think up a dramatic break up faster than she'd planned.

"Nothing yet, I've got my best agents looking into it, I know whoever sent this email, did it from my Shinpaku website, that's why they credited me as the author, since I run the website." Niijima said, downloading the data from the camera he hid in Kenichi's lunchbox wirelessly. "So whoever it is has access to that website and an administrator account. That does narrow my list down to about 20 people, 40 counting my generals, who are never active, and the Valkyries, who I don't believe I've actually paid a visit to, so they aren't even considered an option."

"So why not just go through their emails and find out who sent the file? Yami does that all the time when they suspect a leak." Rachel suggested, having witnessed this in passing once while her Maestro was checking his business accounts.

"That's the thing." Niijima said, scratching his chin with the stylus. "Every general's email is now blank, and all my data logs say they've been blank since the day before the emails went out. So whoever did this is tech savvy enough to get through basic defenses, but they never hit my account, so they must not have been able to break through my personal encryptions."

"Could it have been someone in Yami?" Rachel suggested, leaning over Niijima's shoulder to look at his PDA, which currently held a blank screen.

"Unlikely" Niijima said, pocketing his PDA, he'd set the volume to what he called The N-Frequency, which was a frequency only he and a few animals could hear. "Yami doesn't consider us a big enough threat to them, and your tech team is sadly lacking anyone who could get through my defenses, let alone who could actually give me a cause for worry."

"You've hacked Yami accounts before?" Rachel asked, finding it odd he could get through professional's setups.

"Once or twice." Niijima confessed, grinning. "Though I've never found anything of real interest other than the ID's of the people whose name's you gave me. Your little trick of giving me just their nicknames made it a bit harder than it should have been, but I took them down regardless."

"Mm, well I can't say I mind you hacking certain people's accounts~." Rachel said, smirking.

"I'm guessing they gave you and your master some trouble in the past?" Niijima replied, already knowing the answer.

"Maaaybe~" Rachel replied, smirking as she walked away. "But don't expect much more info out of me until things heat up around here, I trust you can see to that?"

"My dear Rachel, I'm hurt you think I couldn't." Niijima said, feigning pain, pressing his clawed hands to his chest. "Just tell me how much you want to have "done" with Kenichi when nobody else was looking and your wish is my command, for the right price. It's not like he can object."

"Mmm, true. Well, I'm famished so I should get going, I'll see you tomorrow." She said, waving to Niijima as she disappeared down the doorway to find Kenichi.

"Indeed you shall."Niijima said, pulling out his PDA again and tapping it furiously. Truth be told the email hadn't come from the Shinpaku website, he'd found an email from every general's account that was allegedly sent to the newspaper students, containing the same article for them to print, from everyone's usual devices, be it a computer, cell phone, or laptop. So whoever had sent the email was definitely computer savvy, but keeping Rachel and Kenichi in the dark was essential to his success. Should the agent responsible overhear them, they'd think their rouse of pretending to erase the emails, but forgetting to erase the "sent" mails in everyone's accounts was important. If they thought he'd been fooled, they try it again, and this time, they'd be even sloppier and easier to catch, or do the same thing and run into Niijima's new virus, which would corrupt their system and instantly alert him to their position, what kind of system they were using, and what connection they were transmitting from. Should the criminal return to the scene of the crime, they'd find themselves suddenly very sick indeed.

Kenichi sighed as he carried Izumi down the stairs and to the infirmary, The lack of Rachel following him, trying to make a scene of him carrying another girl had him on edge. He knocked on the door with his foot.

"Come in!" He heard the bubbly sounding voice of the school nurse respond.

"Can you get the door? My arms are kinda full!" Kenichi said, sighing as he hear the telltale click of the nurse putting her chopsticks down and the sound of her shoes on the floor as she opened the door.

"Well Kenichi, it's certainly been a while since you were last here." Nurse Marikawa said, smiling at the boy who she'd only seen before when he was covered in bumps and bruises. "Oh, and what happened to Izumi? Did she pass out again? I thought P.E. wasn't for another 2 periods."

"Yeah ,well I've managed to take care of myself." Kenichi chuckled sadly, remembering just how often he'd been in here pre-Ryozanpaku training. The blonde nurse had labeled one of the beds as his own private bed. She'd even hide him when the bullies came looking for him and tell them off if they were caught. "She passed out while we were eating lunch." He informed her, walking over to what was his "private" bed and laying her on it gently. "We were just having lunch together and discussing something, we got up to say hi to Niijima and Rachel, then she passed out."

"Oh, well I'll look after her until she wakes up, and I'll be sure to tell her who her knight in shining armor is." She giggled, patting Kenichi on the head gently. "Now you sit down right here and let me tend to those bruises on your arms and head." She said, motioning to a chair near her desk.

"Erm, not that I'm complaining, but how did you spot them Ms. Marikawa?" Kenichi asked, whatever ointment Ma rubbed on his injuries usually had the swelling from them down by the next morning, so they weren't noticeable. But given Ma had been rather generous in rubbing it on Rachel, Kenichi supposed he just got less than the usual dosage and the lack of ointment showed.

"You don't think I got my nursing degree for nothing do you Kenichi?" She said, faking sounding hurt as she reached up and pulled out a few bottles with the label "Special Rub" on them. "Now take off your shirt."

"What?!" Kenichi shouted, what part of arms and head required him to be topless?!

"If you've got bruises on your head and arms, odds are you've got some on your torso and back too. Now, Shirt. Off." She ordered, giggling as she peered at the jars, discerning which one to open first.

"Alright…if you say so." Kenichi said, unbuttoning his school uniform, folding the shirt and gently setting it to the side. Like she had predicted, Kenichi's torso and back did have a few bruises and bumps on them. As he sat back up he was greeted by the nurse leaning forward and pressing her chest to the back of his head, and her light hands rubbing a very warm ointment on his arms, slowly working their way up to his shoulders. He twitched, unable to pinch his nose, he merely hoped she wouldn't notice the small trickle of blood that came out of it.

"My my, you've certainly bulked up since I last saw you." She said smoothly, giving Kenichi's hardened muscles a slight squeeze as she applied her ointment.

"Really?! I didn't notice!" Kenichi said a bit loudly and nervously.

"Mhmm~, and your chest and shoulder are certainly much broader than last time." She said, rubbing her hands all over his back, noticing that the bruises were rather focused on his shoulder blades and closer to his side. "So how'd you get all banged up when you're in such great shape? I heard you'd joined some martial arts group, do you spar a lot there?" she figured if he'd been beaten up by bullies, the injuries would have been more random and foot shaped on his back, most of these ones looked smaller, or much larger than any foot she'd seen, so she guessed they were from fists.

"Oh! I do a lot of sparring at the dojo I go to!" Kenichi said, feeling very relaxed and the places where she rubbed heated up slightly and felt a bit numbed. "Erm, exactly what lotion IS this?" he asked, fearing the answer would be something along the lines of "ancient family secret", much like Ma would tell him, or even worse "you don't wanna know.".

"Oh it's my own special recipe!" She said cheerily, making Kenichi exhale hard, and then inhale sharply as she moved her hands to his front and gently stroking around his abdominals with her hands, her finger slightly grazing over them and tickling him a bit. "I call it Marikawa's Miracle Muscle Ointment! It relaxes and slightly numbs muscles while giving a pleasant heating sensation, my college professors said I should get it patented and sell it to massage parlors."

"I can see why." Kenichi said, gritting his teeth, and resisting the urge to jump when she stared rubbing all over his chest. "Any chance I could get a bottle of it to take to the dojo with me?" he asked, figuring at least this medicine had an effect he knew, and probably wasn't made out of weird ingredients whose names he couldn't pronounce. He was also desperate to get her hands off his torso for fear Rachel would arrive and see him like this.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY BOYFRIEND?!"

_"Thanks a lot universe."_ Kenichi thought deadpanned, groaning as he saw the thoroughly irritated looking Rachel stomping towards him and the nurse who was rubbing around his collarbone.

"Oh, just applying ointment to his bruises, he said he got them sparring at his dojo, they must have very intense workouts there." Marikawa said, smiling her oh-so-uniquely clueless smile. "I was just about to give his head a rubdown too."

"I can do that myself thank you!" Rachel said, walking over to Kenichi and hugging him, pressing his head into her chest. "See, I bet he feels better already~, right Kenichi?"

"Hehgughehe." Kenichi responded, most of his upper body was pleasantly numb and heated, and Rachel's chest was soft and warm as well, so he was very much enjoying himself at the moment.

"Oh well, if you say so." Marikawa said, shrugging and grabbing the second bottle of her ointment and sliding it into Kenichi's bag. "I'm sure whoever takes care of you at the dojo will be happy to know you've got such a caring girlfriend to look after you."

"Yes, caring, right." Kenichi said absentmindedly, grabbing his shirt and putting it on in a slightly dazed way Rachel moving his hands away and instead choosing to button it up for him, staring intently at his now gleaming chest and arms. And mumbling something to herself, finishing by giving Kenichi a kiss on the forehead.

"There~ now let's go get our lunches quickly before the bell rings." She said, barely giving Kenichi enough time to grab his bag as they left the Nurse's Office.

* * *

><p>Lookie! A fanservicy opening and ending! Was it good? Too cheesy? I need opinions because I don't usually try to write them. And I'm worried it's too much a deviation from my usual style. This chapter was originally 11k+ words long, but I decided to split it into two chapters. Given I've retyped it three times now due to computer failures, (crashed hard drive, TWICE, and crashed Motherboard glitching everything out) I figure it's better just to type them out in my usual 5kish intervals and post them that way.<p>

As for Kenichi's protectiveness of Izumi, she HAS been someone who has always been nice to him, even in the pilot manga. And we know she's far weaker than many normal girls (she can't even do 10 pushups without getting exhausted) and she was harassed by some thugs who were looking for Miu to get to Kenichi, stating she had a similar face to Miu, but entirely different body type (which just BAFFLES my mind). She's weak, pretty much defenseless, but she means well and only has tried to help Kenichi when she can, and I think he notices that, even if he doesn't notice her affection.  
>*glares at Kenichi for his cluelessness*<p>

Now as for Rachel's letting Kenichi off.

Pity and appreciation for how he treated her during their workout and how he had Shigure come to patch her up like she did to him. She's used to Yami who I believe would treat her well…but not friendly. Kenichi does both by default.

The only people around (and conscious) were Kenichi and Niijima. Both of whom are in on the ruse and therefore, do not need more convincing. I think she'd play up the lovey-dovey bits just for fun to see Kenichi's reactions and jade him to the reactions so he'd play along without thinking about it, (like how two friends will insult each other and not think about it, but with sexy things.) but yelling at him would only cause a negative one which would make getting him to cooperate even harder.

As for Niijima and Rachel's dealings, She's calm during those because nothing distracts Niijima, and he's more about information brokering than anything else. And again, Niijima deceived his "allies", can't claim too much surprise there can we?

As for the nurse, if you recognize her name… what? She fits in the story dammit! She'd fit right into the HSDK art style and everything! And she's not gonna be important anyway. And she got a nursing degree, my mom's a nurse and I've seen the chemistry you have to do to get that and she can NOT be as stupid as they portray her in HOTD and have her be an RN in Japan. So she's a biit less flirty and more serious here…only a bit though(enough that her character doesn't annoy me). And SOMEBODY has to tell Kenichi he's ripped. Seriously, NOBODY mentions that the skinny nerd somehow transformed into a body builder? Nobody mentions he's gone from skin and bones to looking like he was chiseled by Michelangelo? (and I was in Italy for 4 months, I've seem Michelangelo's works.)  
>And this is her only scene. So there. (is secretly uncreative and too lazy to find some symbolic name for a one off character.)<p>

Also it gives Rachel an excuse to be dramatic. Not that she NEEDS one mind you.


End file.
